Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, October 11-17, 2015

October 20, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Have I told you how much I enjoy sharing all this Writerly Goodness? I LURVES it!

Roz Morris points out that gender is not the only agenda when considering equality in publishing.

Sheila Williams, editor for Asimov’s since 2004, guest posts on the Women in Science Fiction blog.

K.M. Weiland continues her NaNoWriMo prep posts with six tasks you’ll love yourself for checking off your NaNo pre-writing list.

Sherry D. Ramsey guest posts on Liana Brooks’s blog on her journey from NaNoWriMo to published author.

Katie answers one of the most frequent questions to come across her desk: what’s the hardest part of a novel to write?

If your protagonist is always right, readers will hate her (or him). K.M. Weiland.

I lurve Chuck Wendig when he writes posts like this one: go big, go weird, go you, and fuck fear right in the ear.

This. Is. SO. True. And, so sad. The Kubler-Ross model of grief applied to editing and rewriting. Chuck Wendig. Terribleminds.

Last week, K.M. Weiland compared weak plot points to dimpled or hanging chads. This week, David Corbett looks at the Iran nuclear deal as an example of four corner conflict. Writer Unboxed.

Donald Maass writes about the magnanimity of the author on Writer Unboxed.

Porter Anderson looks at Amazon Crossings on Writer Unboxed.

Want to get your book published? Start here. Jane Friedman.

Man Booker Prize winner, Marlon James’s first book was rejected nearly 80 times. Hope for us all, people. The Guardian.

Will the Amazon scandal with phoney authors and fake reviewers result in a resurgence in print book sales? The Memo.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch tackles the latest Author Earnings report (cause she was a little late addressing the last one).

Has Sabaa Tahir written the next Game of Thrones? The Huffington Post.

Helen Marshall (whose short fiction collection Gifts for the one who comes after has been nominated for nearly every applicable award, and won at least one) is interviewed on the This is Horror podcast.

How’s this for book porn?

The earliest documented use of fuck (so far) discovered. The Daily Mail.

Flavorwire showcases a video game based on Murakami’s magical realism.

Wise Ink shares eight infographics every writer needs.

Buzzfeed presents jokes for book nerds.

Maisy Williams made her debut on Doctor Who this past week. It was a good episode. Space.

Emily Asher-Perrin wishes Hollywood would stop doing these five things. Tor.com.

Top up your tank and get writing!

See you Thursday.

Series discoveries: anime edition

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

This weekend, I’m going to talk about the anime series Phil and I have been watching. Next weekend, I’m going to finally put forward my fall series review, even though some of them won’t have premiered yet (Supergirl) or returned (Grimm) yet.

The reason for this is that over the Hallowe’en weekend, Phil and I will be travelling to Ottawa for Can-con, so I won’t be blogging that weekend, and then, for the month of November, weekend blogging will be deferred in favour of NaNoWriMo (!)

Since I will be once more be working, and travelling for work, during the month of November, I don’t anticipate “winning,” but I certainly hope to improve upon last year’s word count.

So the next two weekends are a countdown to November’s reduced posting schedule. I’ll keep up with curation, but that’s it.

Onto the anime!

Last time, I’d mentioned that Phil and I were enjoying Log Horizon. We were, and then the show suddenly stopped production. With in a week, we learned the reason. The creator of the show was charged with tax evasion.

LH was, at the time, the most popular anime in Japan. Fans were demanding that the show’s creator be allowed to continue producing the show while he waited for his trial date. The creator announced publicly that if there was a way to continue to do so, that he would.

We haven’t seen an episode since.

It was getting to a crisis point in the current story arc. We are disappointed.

We watched the full run of Deadman Wonderland.

Interesting premise. In a society that incarcerates its citizens for the smallest infraction, a young boy finds himself in prison. Before long, he learns that by entering a deadly competition (televised for an elite, high-paying clientele), he can earn a pardon.

Very Hunger Games.

Then, joy of joys, Netflix picked up the licence for Inu Yasha. Just the first two seasons, but we watched it all. Yum.

Phil continues to watch Gintama, and started watching the live action version of Death Note. The live action DN diverged a bit from the anime storyline, but it was popular enough that the second season is in production.

We watched another new show, RWBY. It’s American, and animated a little differently, cell style, but done by computer. RWBY stands for both the colours red, white, blue, and yellow, and for the characters’ names: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang.

They’re huntresses in an academy and they are training to hunt the Creatures of Grimm, with which the human race is fighting a pitched battle. Huntresses use dust to fuel their magic and fight the Grimm.

There’s a bit of a story around this series, as well. Marty Oum, the creator, died, but someone on the project committed to seeing the work through and the next season will be released next week. After that, who knows?

We’ve continued watching Fairy Tail, which continues to be entertaining. I find it a bit frustrating that we have to wait a whole week for the next episode, though.

We also started watching World Trigger. A world receives extra-dimensional visitors, called Neighbors, who seem bent on conquest. To defend themselves, they adapt the Neighbors’ weapons, called triggers, which can only be used by people who have large stores of a substance called trion, and create an agency called Border. Border agents train to defeat the Neighbors.

The anime focuses on Osamu and his team. Osamu does not have a lot of trion, but he is an amazing strategist. His friend, Yuma, is a Neighbor (if you want the back story, watch the series) and has a lot of combat experience. Chika’s brother (also Osamu’s friend) and best friend were abducted by the Neighbors. She has a lot of trion.

Trion and trigger use also endow some users with side effects. Yuma can tall when someone is lying. Chika can sense the presence of Neighbors. Osamu doesn’t have enough trion to have a side effect.

The threesome is a team and currently in a competition to see who will be chosen to go on away missions into the Neighbor dimensions to rescue their friends and family.

This show is also still in production, but is on hiatus now.

We tried watching Fate Zero, but weren’t keen.

And that’s all I have for you with regard to anime. See, I told you we’d dialled back 😉

Have a great week, and I’ll be back to review the fall season of TV for you. The stuff I watch, anyway 🙂

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, October 4-10, 2015

October 15, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

I must have been a little light-headed last week . . .

Last week, Margaret Atwood had her say. This week, Joseph Boyden takes on Stephen Harper. MacLean’s.

A real nation would not let this happen. Why we need to care more about our First Nations. MacLean’s.

The rise of the teaching class: how the learning landscape is changing, by Simona Chiose for The Globe and Mail.

Arthur B. MacDonald shares the Nobel Prize for his work on neutrinos (done right here in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory – SNO)! CBC.

People can do some crazy things when they’re asleep. Psychiatric Times.

Tommy Walker explains why hope is not a valid social media strategy. ConversionXL.

What Dylan Thomas’s seminal poem can teach us about resilience. Forbes.

i09 shares the ten most excellent nicknames in history.

This song was just on Quantico this evening, and there I was, boogying in my seat. Beck – Dreams:

See you Saturday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, October 4-10, 2015

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Another wonderful week of Writerly Goodness.

Roz Morris takes a snap-shot from her self-editing masterclass: Do you have a plot, or a premise? I’m currently reading Larry Brooks’s Story Physics, and this is one of his big issues 🙂

K.M. Weiland offers seven ways NaNoWriMo can help you be a better writer all year long.

Chuck Wendig shares some options for outlining your NaNoWriMo project during National Plot Your Novel Month (NaPloYoNoMo) 😉
Grant Faulkner, executive director of NoNoWriMo stops by Writer’s Digest to talk about what makes NaNo work.

The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) isn’t just for figuring out who you are. Katie shows how you can use it to analyze your characters. BTW, I’m an INTJ, if you wanted to know.

Katie posted later in the week about ‘the call’ and the questions you want to ask when considering an offer of representation.

Agent Carly Watters explains what an agent will want to know on the infamous call.

It was a good week for Katie: Why weak plot points are like the Bush-Gore vote-counting debacle.

Jordan Rosenfeld and Martha Alderson team up on Writer Unboxed to review master scene types for page-turning plots.

Lisa Cron makes her long-awaited (and triumphant) return to Writer Unboxed with this post. Who knows more about story: writers or The Pentagon?

Catherine Ryan Howard shares her year of amazing productivity. This was the post that got me Muse-Ink last Saturday.

Kameron Hurley explores the temperature at which writers give up.

Benjamin Sobieck guest posts on Christine Frazier’s The Better Novel Project to talk about how to write fantasy weapons.

Ben Thompson gives us a two part post in response to the NYT article that reported the faltering of ebook sales in the face of strengthening print sales. Disconfirming ebooks, and Are ebooks declining, or just the publishers?

Kristine Kathryn Rusch takes a look at the latest Author Earnings report.

Jane Friedman shares five observations on the evolution of author business models.

Lachesism. From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

iDiva presents some women science fiction authors you should read.

I’m looking forward to checking out Jessica Jones. Here’s the preview on i09.

Come on back for a short and sweet Thoughty Thursday.

Muse-inks: The dream vs. reality (check)

October 10, 2015October 10, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

On my way to London in August, I was listening to the radio when I heard Beck’s “Dreams.” It’s been on my playlist since.

I don’t know if it’s the driving foot-drum or the grunge-y guitar. I love this song.

Dreams have always been a BIG part of my process. I get ideas from them. I percolate writing ideas into concepts through daydreaming. I studied shamanism for a few years wherein the primary mystic delivery system is dream.

Not incidentally, my characters often receive insight from dreams.

I have dreams for my writing career, too. I may have mentioned them a few times on this blog.

Particularly since “winning” NaNoWriMo my first time out in 2013 and subsequently joining the (some would say) cult of word count tracking, I’ve learned that I’m capable of more than I thought in terms of writing productivity.

I share my productivity, or lack thereof, with you each month on my Next chapter updates.

If you look closely, though. I don’t write a heck of a lot.

My daily drafting would probably average about 250-300 words, or around a page. Sometimes I have a good day and I write 500 or a 1000 words, but some days I don’t write at all. I fit it in where I can around work, blogging, television, and the stuff of life like laundry, gardening, family dinners, and housework.

I’d like to think that if I had the opportunity to write “full time” I’d jump at it. But I *know* I wouldn’t be writing for 7.5 hours a day, five days a week. I’d probably write in the afternoons, primarily. I could still get a shit-load of writing done in that time, though.

I think.

A friend of mine shared that she’d written a thousand words in an hour on her current work in progress. That’s impressive. Other authors I follow report similar results, or better. Several of them with much more demanding lives than I have.

Catherine Ryan Howard recently blogged about her year of amazing productivity (watch Tipsday for that post) and I’ve shared a past post by Kameron Hurley, in which she wrote marathon 10k weekends because that was the only time her day job and life allowed her to have uninterrupted writing time.

Can I do that? I honestly don’t know. I’ve never had to.

A couple of other authors I follow (Marie Bilodeau and Jim C. Hines) have recently made the brave leap into full time writing. It takes more dedication than you think it will to make the writing life work.

I’ve been thinking about this again because I’m querying Initiate of Stone right now. If an agent decided to offer me representation at this point, I wouldn’t be able to leave the day job and focus on writing. If my agent was so lucky as to get me a deal contingent on additional novels, I’d have to find a way to bull my way through everything, including my resistance, to get the work done.

Right now, I make the choice to spend Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) mornings with my mom. On my days off, I generally do that, too. It’s not a duty. It’s something I want to do. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking her out shopping. She’s my best bud as well as my mom.

All the social media stuff that backs up during the week falls into the weekend as well. And preparing my weekly curation posts.

I let this happen.

Part of me says this is the way it is. Another part of me says that the day job gives me the excuse/luxury/lack of urgency to be lazy. I don’t need to grind out words to meet a deadline and pay this month’s (or heaven forbid, last month’s) bills.

I’m also thinking about my potential productivity as I head into another NaNoWriMo while I’m working, and travelling for work, during November. My only goal for this year is to beat last year’s 28,355 word effort.

In August, due to my two and a half week trip delivering training, I gave up posting on the weekends. I think I’m going to do that in November, too, even though I’ll have Can-Con sessions to report on. Y’all will just have to be patient 🙂

I continue to discover that I can do more than I think I can when I have the proper motivation.

If nothing else, I’ll try and see what happens.

The dream is still alive despite the reality check.

What about you, dear reader? Will your dreams survive the reality check?

Until next week! *waves*

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Sept 27-Oct 3, 2015

October 8, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Somber and reflective tonight. I turned on the furnace for the first time this fall. *sob*

T squared is bringing the mixed bag. I was challenged to find some kind of logical organization. I kind of gave up. Sorry, but you never know, it might encourage those creative connections.

We have an election coming up in a couple of weeks. I’ve tried not to post too much political stuff, but this is an important issue in Canada, and one that many people still don’t fully understand. Federal NDP candidate, Tom Mulcair, wants scientists to speak their minds. The Toronto Star.

President Obama challenged the media to compare terrorism-related deaths and gun-related deaths. So, Vox did.

Last weekend, there was a supermoon eclipse, or blood moon. Of course, just at we were getting to the good part, it got cloudy 😦

Here’s my consolation: Gizmodo shares their best images of the supermoon eclipse.

And then, Sudbury got hit by a couple of earthquakes, which I didn’t experience at all. CBC.

The Good News Network reports that deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 90% in the last ten years.

i09 lists the five scariest cults in modern history.

SciShow looks at the real world of forensics:

Red dresses focus attention on Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women. The Huffington Post.

Other people’s reproductive plans are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. CBC.

Veritasium wonders, is glass a liquid?

Why Neil deGrasse Tyson is the smartest man on television. The Rolling Stone.

Vi Hart on “Happy Birthday” day:

Why self-care is central to Anna Lovind’s creative life. Annapurna Living.

In light of the Amazon expose, IKEA and Facebook are looking at a shorter work week. CNN.

Ask a Mortician takes a look at medieval zombies:

Here’s a fun bit of satire from The New Yorker: Earth endangered by a new strain of fact-resistant humans (!)

Have you been inspired? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments 🙂

See you again on Saturday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Sept 27-Oct 3, 2015

October 6, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

This week’s offerings:

We all “know” we’re supposed to be honest in our fiction, but what does that really mean? K.M. Weiland.

Katie features One stop for writers, by Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi, and Scrivener’s Lee Powell, on her personal blog. We have to wait until October 7 to sign up, though. (Hey! That’s TOMORROW!)

Then, Katie offers two warning signs that you’re starting your story too early in her Friday vlog.

Bonnie Randall is back with another great post on Janice Hardy’s Fiction University: Getting psyched out.

C.S. Lakin gives us a list of ten questions that will help check our stories for underwriting. Live, write, thrive.

Every journey starts with a first step. Every story begins with the first word. About gittin’ ‘er done. BookBaby blogs.

Cathy Yardley asks, is your story complex, or overly complicated? How to build complexity without confusing your reader. Writer Unboxed.

Nicole Winters writes about how she kicked research in the butt. Writers in the Storm.

Canadian small press Bilblioasis is doing great things (with three books on the Giller long-list). The Globe and Mail.

Now is not the time for realistic fiction, says Margaret Atwood. NPR.

Elizabeth Gilbert warns of the perils of ignoring your creative self on CBC’s Q.

Eleanor Arnason guest posts on the Women in Science Fiction blog.

Chuck Wendig asked a few cool people to write guest posts on his Terribleminds blog. First, Stina Leicht offers her thoughts on message fiction in SFF. The S.L. Huang defends escapist, blow-shit-up-hell-yeah, popcorn entertainment. Then, editor John Adamus explains why getting an independent and professional editor to review your work is so important.

Anna Lovind explains why she ditched her beautiful career in publishing. Annapurna Living.

“If you’re being rejected 90% of the time, you’re actually incredibly successful.” Dan Blank interviews Eric Wert on We Grow Media.

Check out this historical fiction: The incredible expandable book. Medieval Books.

Put these ten ultra-weird science fiction novels on your reading list. i09.

Mental Floss presents 11 unusual books stores you can visit.

Hope you found something useful. If you did, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Hang in until Thoughty Thursday.

The next chapter: September 2015 update

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

What can I say about September? First, I’m back on track. Second, I finished drafting Marushka and am well on my way to having a finished draft of Gerod and the Lions.

Marushka ended up at a tidy 73,961 words altogether, or 97% of my 75k goal. As it’s a YA fantasy, I’m quite happy with that.

I’m going to set my sights a little lower with GatL than my original 50k goal. I think 40k should be enough. With revision and editing, It will likely settle somewhere around 45k, which is pretty perfect for a middle grade (MG) novel.

I did some more work on my query letter and am now preparing my next batch. To make up for missing August and September, I’m going to send out in batches of 10 queries for the next two months. I might do this in batches of five every couple of weeks. We’ll see.

I’m also making good progress on my outline for Reality Bomb (working title), which should be complete in time for its drafting in NaNoWriMo 2015. I’m on chapter 21 of 36, so I think I’m in a good place. I should note that as I’m writing this outline in a notebook, by hand, in my own, rather chaotic, cursive, that I’m not counting these words on my spreadsheet.

As far as the short fiction is concerned, I continue to revise and submit, but I haven’t had any positive response recently.

Here’s how things broke down in September:

The blog has once again taken over as my most productive medium with 6,466 words;
In second place is GatL with 5,691 words;
Marushka clocked in at 1,776 words;
My query rewrites totalled 116 words; and
I revised 79 words of short fiction.

Total words generated in September: 14,128.

There were only four days where I didn’t record any word count, but those days, I was likely working on my outline.

I’m settling into the writing life again after all my trials and tribulations this year. It feels good. It feels freaking fantastic.

And now, I’m going to try to get a few words in for October 3rd before Doctor Who 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

And we’ll see you again on Tuesday for more Writerly Goodness.

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, September 20-26, 2015

October 1, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Strap your thinking caps on people!

Anna Lovind asks, what fears do you have to face to commit to making your dream a reality?

Sir Ken Robinson explores creativity in teaching. Mind/Shift.

Elizabeth Gilbert on the connection between creativity and curiosity. The Science of Us.

The Canadian Supreme Court rules that we have the right to doctor-assisted suicide. A victory for compassion. The Globe and Mail.

One scientist proposes that starting work before 10 am is tantamount to torture. Personally, I’d be inclined to agree, but from the comments when I posted this to Facebook, everyone has their peak times, and many people start their work days early. The Plaid Zebra.

Four ways to recognize gaslighting. Everyday Feminism.

Why your new mantra for inner peace should be “I don’t care.” Elephant Journal.

The one practice you need to be truly happy. MindBodyGreen.

99u presents the four productivity styles.

Music from Anne Boleyn’s songbook is performed for the first time in 500 years. itv.com

A whale fossil was discovered in the mountains. How cool is that? i09.

The secret lives of horses. Scientific American.

How the Dark Net is going mainstream. Jamie Bartlett’s TED Talk.

More proof presented that galaxy-spanning super civilizations do not exist in the local universe. i09.

Hubble captures an incredible image of an exploding star. IFLS.

Cyanobacteria could be the key to colonizing (and terraforming) Mars. Gizmodo.

It’s always good to keep your scientific terms straight. Hypothesis, theory, and law. It’s Okay to be Smart.

Creativity is about seeing interesting and unexpected connections between apparently disparate things. I’ve given you the raw material. Now get thoughty with it.

See you Saturday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, September 20-26, 2015

September 29, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

One day left in September? Where did the time go?

It’s another tasty week of Writerly Goodness 🙂

K.M. Weiland invites you into her process as she corrects her story on her blog. Listen to the podcast and follow along with the screen shots on the blog.

Then, Katie shares what this past year preparing for publication has been like.

And for the hat trick: Foreshadowing and misdirection. Two sides of the same writerly skill best used in concert. Find out how in Katie’s Friday vlog.

Bonnie Randall returns to Janice Hardy’s Fiction University to explore the lessons writers can learn from The Killing. Phil and I are watching this on Netflix now. Just started season two. It’s definitely well-written.

Barbara Kyle shares five tips for writing a series on Chryssa Bazos’s blog.

Jane Friedman discusses the evolution of the literary agent. Writer’s Digest.

Porter Anderson digs deeper into the Authors Guild survey and what it means on Thought Catalog.

You may be surprised at what counts as a success in terms of book sales. Lynn Neary for NPR.

Ebook sales slip and the rumours of print book death are greatly exaggerated. The New York Times.

Summary judgement motions filed in ebook price fixing suit. Publishers Weekly.

How Oyster’s shut down (and movement of its employees to Google) is affecting attempts to create a “Netflix” for ebooks. Forbes.

Forbes’s Edmund Ingham interviews Reedsy founder, Emmanuel Nataf, about how his service is disrupting publishing.

Last week, I shared a post about a banned book in New Zealand. This week, the author speaks out. The Observer.

Messages to the future. Vsauce. I’ve chosen to put this in Tipsday because it’s about the stories we tell.